News

Greener Towels at the RSF

We wash a lot of towels here at the RSF — as many as 13,000 towels per week and 50 loads of wash each day. That requires quite a bit of water. To help reduce the eco impact of this process, we’ve switched to a detergent by Vaska, a Berkeley based company that produces an eco-friendly herbal detergent free of harmful chemicals. Vaska’s detergents, recently awarded “champion” status under the EPA’s Safer Detergents Stewardship Initiative, break down quickly to non-polluting compounds to help protect aquatic life in both fresh and salt water.
Saves Water and Energy Too
And that’s not all. Because Vaska is herbal based, it requires fewer rinse cycles than chemical-based detergents, greatly reducing the amount of water (and energy) needed to clean our towels. Vaska estimates that this will save over 100,000 gallons of water per year, per machine. And we have four machines — that’s over 400,000 gallons per year!

Does it Clean Like Chems?
You’re probably wondering, “but does it clean as well as chemical-based detergents?” The San Francisco Giants think so — they’ve been using Vaska to clean grass and infield-stained uniforms since last year. And we just learned that the SF production of the hit musical Wicked uses it too — apparently Elphaba’s (the wicked witch of the west) green makeup stains her wardrobe something fierce, but Vaska gets it clean.